Vtr 250 Rebuild / Track Project

I'm starting a thread here for my VTR 250 rebuild. I have a thread started on the VTR250 forums as well. Small crowd, but lots of good information and helpful people.

Started Saturday on sorting through the mess of stuff that came with my $250 VTR. I get another bike in the garage in a few days (Track prepped Honda F2), so progress on this one will be slow, as that one should only take a week or two to finish.

Started on the carbs. The PO must have not known exactly what he was doing, because he just bought almost everything new he could from Service Honda for them, down to the screws. The first carb was pretty much perfect. The second carb was in pieces. It went together and I had all the parts for it, except for one. The vacuum diaphragm was torn to bits, probably because he just threw it in a ziploc with a ton of other loose parts. So an hour into the bike, and I've already found something to kill it off. Waiting to head if a member here and there (Squirrelman) has a spare one. Otherwise I found someone who makes new ones, but they are thicker than OEM and may not be as good. But it's $20 a pop vs $100 for OEMs that you can't get anymore anyways, so not much of a choice.

Here is the link to the aftermarket ones. They are thicker and not as stretchy as OEMs, but it's better than what I have.

http://jbmindustries.com/K-72-S.html

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Moved the VF500C rolling mess in the shed and brought this out to the garage.

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Put the carbs together as best as I could to reduce the number of loose parts floating around in the bag. Forgot to put the Y pipe in, and a few other things.

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If your diaphragm looks like this, you will not be riding today.

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The petcock was taken apart as well. The rebuild kit says it's for a CX500, but the parts looks about the same. Couldn't figure out exactly how it goes together. Something just didn't seem right when I was fitting parts together.

that petcock looks exactly like a VF500f. Look here:

http://www.daughertymotorsports.com/howto/Tankvalve/tankvalve.html

Yeah. It does. That actually is a pretty good picture of how it's supposed to go together. I got close. Didn't put that aluminum piece in there.

The VF500, VFR400, and VTR250 share a lot of parts.

Looks like a fun project!

If interested KPMI made (will make again?) a valve kit for the VTR250.

If I'm jumping too far ahead, just tell me shut up and wait . . . What do you have planned for the front brakes? It looks like a fun little project.

I planned it for him. I am tucking a complete Hurricane 600 front end in with his race bike delivery next week.

I'm probably going to get the stock setup working 100% before I go ahead and do front end swaps. It's a little less time consuming. But yes, CBR600 front end will be on there eventually, as well as a new rear shock from a to be determined bike.

Very cool. I've a '90. Very nice shape. I'm anxious to learn what you will do.

I keep wondering how to keep the stock look while reducing its weight. Sadly VTR 250's are called Barbie-ceptors here.

If it were painted with bed liner, plus an elegant, long narrow red or orange stripe people may consider it more manly. R3~

Nice find and nice price! The VTR has a peaky little engine, and I'm sure it would be a blast on a track. I ran across one yesterday while out on a ride and had a chance to talk with its owner. He painted it yellow (rattlecan), but aside from that, the bike looked pretty cool. He was going pretty fast in the twisties of Highway 2 where we were riding. I used to own a 1990 VTR 250 in the early 90's, and for a young fella that weighed 120 lbs at the time, the thing was a blast! The bluish-purple zig-zaggy stripe screamed late 80's nostalgia.

Any plans to change the front wheel with a 17" from a later model?

HiDesertMLB

Any plans to change the front wheel with a 17" from a later model?

Yes. Timmy is sending me a Hurricane front end to swap on there. I'll be able to squeeze a 140 on the rear, and I'll have a second wheel option to work on later. But first is just cleaning and sorting it out. still going to fix the stock front end, cause it's always good to have working parts around instead of broken ones.

I only have the headlight, one side panel, tail light, and the partial rear cowl. Later on I'll look at tossing full fairing on it from an RS250 or the like.

YoshiHNS

I only have the headlight, one side panel, tail light, and the partial rear cowl. Later on I'll look at tossing full fairing on it from an RS250 or the like.

Believe it or not, that gear may be too big. Look into RS125 stuff. and you are getting both wheels. (the rear one has a 140 on it)

So I dug around in the tank for the missing petcock parts....

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I think I might need a new one.


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I think I might need a new one.

Speaking of things that you can't get that I need new ones of...

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I can't remember if I read a thread where a suzuki part matched the face seal or not. I'll look it up again. I like how this tank is pretty small and light, but I'm okay with moving to an F2 tank and fabbing something up for it to mount to. The tank doesnt look too terrible though, but I can't get the other half of the fuel filter out after messing around with it for a bit.

you should do what I am going to do on my 500. Have the whole shabang welded shut and have the welder put on a bung for a regular old Pingle petcock.

Found a thread where they found a equivalent part for a suzuki. Should work for the 500, as it works for the CB900F and a bunch of other ones as well. So I should still be able to replace it. But they also found an entire new petcock that fits with modifications.

If I am able to get the rust and other garbage out of the tank, I was almost thinking of just putting a ball valve with an inline fuel filter in place of the thing.

I went ahead and did the valve check since I had two free hours tonight. All of them were pretty good, except one. There's always one rotten apple. I didn't even bother to measure how far out it was as I could see with my naked eye it was out. Maybe 1/16" too loose. I pulled the tappet out to check if it was broken, but it looked perfect to me. Wondering if it's going to be a bad valve. The rest were off +/- 0.003 or better, most being pretty close to spec. I was going to give the engine a few spins by hand and recheck the gaps, but ran out of time.

Be aware that ball valves have sealing rings. (Nylon, Delrin, other?) They may not be compatible. R3~

Roebling3

Be aware that ball valves have sealing rings. (Nylon, Delrin, other?) They may not be compatible. R3~

Well aware. Viton preferred.

Hooked the battery up and did the compression test.

75psi on the rear
00psi on the front

So that exhaust valve that is way off is an issue. I've had enough bad news from this bike for a while. My big goal for the year is to have one bike ready for the track. The F2 was delivered yesterday, so that's what I'm going to switch my focus to. Hopefully that's just a carb cleaning and a valve check, otherwise I'm 0/4 for running projects. :sad:

The only slight bit of good news is that I sold the better heads off my spare VF500 engine, so now I won't feel bad at all about pillaging the other half for spare parts. Just have to hope that there are enough good parts to get both the original VF500 engine and this 250 engine working properly. At least I can get head gaskets for the 250. Customs from Cometic are $85/ea for the 500.

Perhaps a valve kit from KPMI is on the clipboard?

InvisibleCities

Perhaps a valve kit from KPMI is on the clipboard?

Maybe. I can still get valves and seals and maybe some other parts, but only one of the springs. I've never heard of KPMI, and I doubt that they would have a kit for any of the really rare hondas.

They do, they do! I did the research when looking for a valve kit for the VF500F (from memory the '84/'85 500 has the same spec as the VTR250)

Give a shout out to Warren Fong @ Kibblewhite: http://www.kpmivalvetrain.com/index.html

Must not be listed, but I'm not too worried about that right now. The valve parts in the VF500 match to the VTR250 except for the intake valve, but those are $14 ea. So I have half a motor to take parts off first. If things are really worn I might spring for the set if the price is right. But I'll worry about that then. Thanks for the link. Hopefully won't come in handy when I go through the F2.

Before any of that does happen, I would need the tools for taking the valves out.

Am I allowed to say it yet?

This thread seriously needs an update my friend...